Monsters turned out to be trees
by blahblahblah97
Summary: 'Fifty two seconds felt like an eternity stretched out before you of everything left unsaid and like it passed in the blink of an eye, both of you left in the aftermath not quite sure where you stand.' Simmons is the doctor. She should be able to fix it, to fix Fitz. But some things cannot be fixed.


**AN: Hey guys! It's been awhile. I'm sorry it's been so long since my last update! I'm sorry to say I don't have much to give you, I have a few pieces started and lots of ideas, and not enough time to write them in! Then every time I do sit down to write I can't get it right and lose inspiration. Anyone else having writers block?**

**Anyway, as we know I'm a big Marvel fan and I LOVE Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and…you guessed it….Fitzsimmons.**

**Just don't.**

**Don't even talk to me.**

**They're so beautiful and painful and it so is not going to end well because the Whedon's are evil. Gah.**

**Anyway, this is just a little thought process thing, it's a bit all over the place but to be honest I'm just trying to get back into the swing of writing!**

**So read and review if you want to give feedback, I hope you enjoy and have a great day!**

Remember when you hit the brakes too soon

Twenty stitches in a hospital room

When you started crying

Baby, I did too

But when the sun came up

I was looking at you

Remember when we couldn't take the heat

I walked out, I said, I'm setting you free

But the monsters turned out to be just trees

When the sun came up

You were looking at me.

**-Taylor Swift 'Out of the Woods.'**

Fifty two seconds.

It was fifty two seconds between the time when he said the words that changed everything

'you're more than that, Jemma.'

And when everything changed for both of you.

He pressed the button.

Fifty two seconds of near silence, trying to convey everything you needed to say.

Things you couldn't say.

In fifty two seconds everything is conveyed between the two of you, all the thoughts and the feelings and the lingering looks and the lips brushed against cheeks, the 'come back safe' and the 'you've been beside me the whole damn time.'

Fifty two seconds felt like an eternity stretched out before you of everything left unsaid and like it passed in the blink of an eye, both of you left in the aftermath not quite sure where you stand.

You have fifty two seconds to tell him how you feel, to make him take the oxygen, to tell him you'd rather die down here with him than live in a world without him in it.

But you don't.

Because that stupid part of your brain tells you fifty two seconds is not enough time to decide you love someone, not enough time to tell them. 90ft under water facing death is not an opportune time because you could be being irrational, couldn't you?

You weren't being irrational.

But Fitz never looks at you the same way because your silence spoke louder than the words screaming from your heart and prevented by your head.

He wasn't the same.

The man lying before you wasn't Fitz, your Fitz. He was cracked, broken and damaged, and you can't fix it.

You're the doctor, they expect you to fix it but cerebral hypoxia can have long term effects, not easily reversed.

Potentially never reversed.

And you're not like him. He's good at this sort of thing, at helping and comforting people and fixing things.

That's what Fitz does, he fixes things.

All you can do is make a sandwich and all you have now are two degrees most people can't pronounce and a broken heart because you lost him the moment you went silent.

You can't fix him so you sit with a cup of tea- you have to remind yourself to make one, not two- and watch the live stream of Ward pacing in his cell. You feel happy that he's in there, caged like an animal- a sick sense of gladness fills you every time, along with the devil whispering in your ear to turn the oxygen off in there, to make him feel what Fitz felt.

But then you think that death would be too kind a fate.

You're desperately searching for some way to help because every time you talk to Fitz it's nothing but frustrated looks and trailed off sentences. You've come up with nothing but one suggestion that keeps running through your head and putting a dagger through your heart-

Take out the affecting variable.

It's when you see the pitying looks from Skye that you know it's time to leave.

It takes three times of going up to Coulson's door before you can actually work up the nerve to ask for leave, to be placed elsewhere. Purely to monitor his progress, you say. Just to try every avenue. You can't look Coulson in the eye but he knows, and the man feels like he's handing you the second death sentence, on par with shutting you off in the lab when you contracted the disease.

Only then Fitz was willing to join you, willing to die for you. Now he can't go where you're going, and you can't go where he is, and it feels like there are years separating you when he is right next door.

You practice in the mirror until you're able to say yes, Fitz, I'm going to visit Mum and Dad without that quirk to your lip or the furrow between your brows. When you lean in to kiss his cheek it strikes you that this could be the last time you see him.

It's better this way.

That's what you tell yourself when you're in the bathroom, your fist balled in your mouth to stop the screams threatening to erupt.

It's May who finds you, scissors in hand and hair half hacked off. You stuttered excuses about needing a change and a trim and May cuts you off with a surprisingly gentle 'I know', and you want to weep with relief. Someone finally understands what it's like to be the one left standing, having lost a piece of yourself in the process. May's silence is a comfort as she takes the scissors from you and cuts off your hair, the only words offered are judging when to stop cutting.

Days at Hydra pass in a blur of pounding hearts and quickening pulses, hysteria threatening to erupt most moments and you only feel calm when Coulson is there with you and you can almost pretend that you're back on the bus. You don't ask about him, but Coulson knows- of course he does. He'll always say how Fitz is doing- stable. Little improvement. And you can't be near him, it's too hard trying to be with him knowing he has _brain damage_ for _you._

Then you're back with your team but it's different, there are new people and for once you're the one that doesn't like change.

Fitz can't even look at you. Every time he does, all you can see is how he's hurting, how he's broken, and you can't fix it.

You tried to fix it.

All you did was make him worse.

Fitz thinks you left because you don't love him.

You still can't find the words to tell him you left because you did.


End file.
